Another birthday

Today I turn 31 years old.  I guess never envisioned what life would be like when I got here.  And really today is no different than the last 365 have been.

Unlike Oprah, who shares the same birthday as me, I'm not inviting 50 of my friends to take a spin class with me.  I'd love to but unfortunately, I don't know 50 people that enjoy spin or would even pretend to like it to celebrate my birthday with me.  Heck, who knows if I even have 50 friends....50 acquaintances maybe.

No, instead I'm hopefully headed to the airport in New Orleans to fly into St. Louis at a decent hour so I can come home and enjoy the evening with D and my bro.  D is planning on making my requested birthday dinner of turkey burgers and sweet potato tots and he even made the wish list dessert, S'mores cake, I found when scoping out Twitter while I was out of town.
No big parties or wild nights out to celebrate my "birthday anniversary."  My only birthday wish is that I make it home tonight...

Stranded....

If I make it out of here tomorrow afternoon, I will be home celebrating my 31st birthday with D and my brother, if not, I will be spending an additional night in New Orleans, stranded by ice, sleet and snow.
I'm extremely frustraded and ready to rent a car and take matters into my own hand.  Unfortunately I have been instructed to stay put by my boss in St. Louis, who is equally as frustrated by the CFO who planned this trip and has been careless about the whole thing from the get-go.
Fortunately, I am not stuck at the airport but at our hotel.  Unfortunately, I'm not at home and not with the people I want to be with right now.  Equally sucky is the fact that I don't have my laptop nor any of my work and month-end will be here before you know it.  Not really wanting to work the weekend to get closed on Monday.....
Two of our planned flights have already been cancelled, I'm holding my breath I get to be with two of the most important fellas in my life tomorrow night after 3 stressful days of travel.
Trust me, I will not be traveling for work again anytime soon...if ever.

New responsibility

Man, what a week....the Blues beat up the Red Wings Monday night; Biebs was arrested; Polar Vortex 2 unsurprisingly made me grumpy after my walk home Thursday night (negative degree wind chills, yay!); my boss informed me that I am headed to New Orleans Monday morning for a meeting at our export terminal and oh yeah, starting in February, I'm now responsible for twice as much work going forward.
Come to find out the reason for my trip to terminal is that I will be handling more than just our export sales, I'll now be handling all sales and all terminal paperwork in order to send to the new group taking over the Financial Accounting and I must meet with both the old and new group to figure out everything I should be doing going forward.  I CAN NOT WAIT!  (Can you hear that excitement in my voice?  Yeah, me neither.)
I already feel like I'm pushed to the limits with export sales every day and my boss, who when in a closed door meeting with me, told me "I know I'm giving you a lot more and I know you already have a full load, but I know you will find a way to handle it all."  Suuuuuure....or I'll just go certifiably insane soon after my 31st birthday.....we shall see.
I've never been to New Orleans before and while its going to be a short trip (leaving at 7 am Monday morning, back to the St. Louis office at lunch time Tuesday), I hope to see enough to warrant a return visit for something other than work.  Of course, that is if I ever get time to take a vacation with all this new responsibility....

As for today, I'm trying to figure out what I need to wear for both a coal terminal tour and meeting and then pack my "nice clothes" for coming back to the office on Tuesday, then we're headed to my Mom and Michael's for an early birthday dinner.  Can you believe it, 3 short days until I'm 31?  I surely can't, OMG.

1 year and counting

Saturday night D and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary with tickets to the Blues game.  (Technically, our anniversary was a few weeks ago, but the Blues didn't coordinate their home schedule with us.)  These were not just any tickets though, these were "All You Can Eat, Drink and Be Merry Down By The Glass" tickets.  We were 4 rows off of the ice and got to see two powerhouse teams duke it out.  Unfortunately the game didn't end in our favor but it was an exciting one against the Ducks and D was deck

ed out in his brand new Blues jersey his mom gave him for Christmas.

Celebrating a goal

Kid Ells

St. Louis' own Patrick Maroon

Tonight we're at home, watching the Blues smash the Red Wings at Joe Louis.  And while I love D and would do just about anything for him, nothing makes me happier than seeing my Blues win against those guys...even when my dear is dressed up, celebrating his team....

Yes, he actually Snap Chatted this to my fam!  :)

Snowmageddon 2014

We're in the midst of our first snow storm of 2014....

Source

People went crazy here yesterday clearing grocery stores of bread, milk, eggs and every other "essential" necessary for getting by for a day without being able to travel.  (Really, who doesn't have a 1 or 2 day supply of food at home?  We're having soup for a few days!)

Anyway, as of a couple of minutes ago, here is the latest from our window, I'm guessing there is about 6 inches so far and this is supposed to last through the mid-afternoon.

Thankfully we have no where we need to be today.  It's probably the first day in a good month that we have nothing planned and not much to actually do besides chill at home.  We put away all of the Christmas decorations yesterday and actually found new homes for all of our Christmas "toys" as well.  Heck, D even whipped out his new handheld Shark to do some cleaning too.

Given all of the festivities we've faced with the holidays and then the stressful year-end close on Thursday and Friday, today is looking to be the perfect pajama, movie, sitting by the fire day here.